Chapter 91: Solving the Chinese input
Billy did not stay in Beijing for more than three days, and the trip was only three days. Three days were already a luxury for the senior management and shareholders of a large American company.
However, before returning to China, he personally promised Fan Wubing that within a week he would urge the company's board of directors to pass the letter of intent to cooperate by both parties. If there is no other problem, he hopes that the PCfans club can clear up various obstacles to the entry of the Chinese mainland market as soon as possible and strive to serve Chinese users as soon as possible.
Sure enough, after waiting for a week, I received a telegram from Billy that Compaq's American company had officially established a cooperative relationship with China's PCfans Club. The PCfans Club has the general sales agency rights for personal computers launched by Compaq in the mainland, and is responsible for market research, publicity, sales and after-sales services for the mainland market.
At this point, the most important step in Fan Wubing's blueprint was finally taken.
Next, Fan Wubing used all the energy he could use and began to sell Compaq's personal computer products.
It should be said that personal computers in this period did not do enough, but it is undeniable that as the ancestor of all ibm-compatible machines later, Compaq's various technologies were leading. Their product defect rate was very low, the machine performance was relatively stable, and the noise was running in a very small range.
Fan Wubing first turned his attention to the two units that are most likely to accept personal computers, universities and scientific research departments, and then the departments that require computers the most. Of course, although scientific research units and banks also need computers, they also need servers with high performance and expensive performance.
Compaq's main product is personal computers, and its scope of application is still smaller. Therefore, Fan Wubing immediately shifted his strategic target of attack to HP, which is known for producing servers.
Unlike the freshman Compaq, HP, since it was born in 1939 in a narrow garage at 367 Edison Avenue, Palo Alto, California, two young inventors, Bill Hewlett and David Packard, started the innovation journey of Silicon Valley with the only $538 at hand, with a beautiful vision for future technological development and the passion for invention and creation.
Strictly speaking, HP is involved in a wide range of industries, not simply a computer manufacturer, but this cannot erase its great position in the entire computer industry. As early as 1980, HP launched personal computer products and developed an email system in 1982. In 1984, this year, HP launched the hp thinkjet printer, which is an epoch-making product. In the next few decades, HP's printer standards will also be used in the industry.
Fan Wubing's method of convincing HP was very simple. On the one hand, he provided his own asset proof materials, and on the other hand, he slightly revealed the news that he had comprehensive cooperation with Compaq on personal computers. As a manufacturer of personal computers, HP knows that the market development prospects in the undeveloped region of mainland China are promising. After a little consideration, HP signed a cooperation agreement with Fan Wubing's pcfans club, mainly carrying out comprehensive cooperation on server projects.
As for HP, they always insist that servers are the mainstream trend in the industry, and that personal computers are just a nice but not practical product. The so-called digital desktop is really going to be implemented, and there is still a long way to go.
A server product is often sold at hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, and its net profit is more than one hundred percent. As long as a hundred or ten units are sold in a year, the company's profits can be guaranteed. Because the price of personal computers is tens of thousands of dollars, the price is not awkward, the audience is not large, and the added value of profits is relatively low. Even if you can sell tens of thousands of units a year, the income is limited. Therefore, although HP also makes personal computer products, it is not its key project.
But Fan Wubing is very clear that although server products are profitable at present, the market for personal computers is indeed unlimitedly huge. The reason why HP and ibm despise personal computers is certainly because they have made a lot of US dollars in server products, their short-sightedness will create countless new competitors for themselves.
Then Fan Wubing took advantage of the power of winning two consecutive games and took over ibm. The international commercial machine manufacturing company saw that old stores like HP and rookies like Compaq chose Fan Wubing's PCfans Club as the general agent of the mainland, so he signed a contract with him without thinking.
However, Microsoft, an old partner of ibm, had some disagreements. They felt that it was too early to enter the immature mainland Chinese market at this time, so they politely declined Fan Wubing's agency proposal.
"Damn! Microsoft is amazing! If you don't cooperate, I won't do pirated versions!" Fan Wubing originally wanted to get a cooperation with Bill Gates, but the other party was unwilling to join in. He was suddenly a little embarrassed and angry.
In anger, Fan Wubing immediately decided that he would invest some money in the future. Even if he was free to pay, he would build a pirated base somewhere, specifically pirated Microsoft's software, especially his operating system software.
"Now we already have a source of goods, but where are the customers?" Fan Ting kept reminding Fan Wubing, who was in a feverish mind.
"Customer?" Fan Wubing pointed at the map of China hanging on the wall with great optimism, drew a big circle on it with his fingers, and said to his sister Fan Ting confidently, "On our country, there are customers everywhere!"
Fan Wubing's meaning is naturally because he saw the widespread popularity of personal computers decades later. However, for now, the users of personal computers are still mainly limited to some special departments, such as banks, universities, research institutes, state organs, etc., and it is very rare even if it is applied to commercial systems.
To break the biggest obstacles in the promotion of computers in China, it is necessary to solve the problem of Chinese input.
Fan Wubing happened to know that someone has been studying this issue and where others are.
Ni Guangnan is an expert at the Institute of Computing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This pioneer in Chinese character information processing is focused, irreconcilable, and has the talent of a scientist. He always likes to use highly technical problems to test the other party.
Since the 1980s, the market for personal computers has gradually awakened, and ibm computers have begun to enter the Chinese market. The port price of a PC/XT model that is even lower than the 286 model is as high as 20,000 yuan when entering China. The agency in Zhongguancun costs 40,000 yuan when it comes to a dealer, but these expensive computers cannot recognize Chinese characters and operate Chinese systems.
Therefore, developing a Chinese character system suitable for the Chinese market has become an urgent scientific research project.
At that time, many people in China were already engaged in this research and development, including Shi Yuzhu and others who later became popular in Shenzhen. These Chinese character systems were vividly called Hanka.
The principles and operation process of Han Card are similar, while Ni Guangnan’s uniqueness is that he invented the association function. Ni’s Han Card uses the characteristics of phrases and homophones in Chinese characters to establish its own Chinese character recognition system. Compared with other Han Card technologies, it reduces the repetition rate of two-character phrases by 50%, the three-character phrases by 98%, and there are almost no repetitions of phrases with more than four characters. This is undoubtedly an epoch-making progress for computer Chinese character input technology.
If Fan Wubing wants to eliminate the language barriers in the computer promotion process, the first thing he thought of was to get out the Han card and then tie it to the computers he promoted to ibm, Compaq and HP.
However, when he found Ni Guangnan, the expert had basically completed the research process of the entire set of Han cards, and another company was preparing to cooperate with him, but the two parties had not had formal contact yet.
"Five hundred thousand!" Fan Wubing said to Ni Guangnan very directly.
"What's 500,000?" Ni Guangnan was confused by the words of the young man in front of him.
Fan Wubing met Ni Guangnan under the recommendation of others. The expert in front of him gave him the impression that he was an inventor in a cartoon movie, so he proposed his own acquisition conditions in pain.
"Buy your Han card system for 500,000 yuan." Fan Wubing explained clearly.
"What's the use of asking for so much money?" Unexpectedly, Ni Guangnan replied with this sentence.
Will money be useless? Fan Wubing's head suddenly got a little stunned. He may have considered many answers, but he did not expect that Ni Guangnan gave him such a kind, which immediately became a mess and didn't know how to answer Ni Guangnan's question.
Ni Guangnan was also looking at this young man. If it weren't for an acquaintance, he said that he was a senior executive of a newly established large company. He really wouldn't care about Fan Wubing. After all, his own research work is still very busy, so where can I have time to play house for the children?
"Since you don't need a lot of money, what is your biggest wish?" Fan Wubing felt that his expression was a bit like a devil who seduced others to commit crimes.
"Wish?" Ni Guangnan didn't want to answer this question, but when he saw Fan Wubing's focused look, he changed his words and said, "The inventor's wish is naturally to hope that every invention of his own can be transformed into a real product. This is my wish!"
Fan Wubing immediately replied, "Join our company! I promise that we have the ability to transform every invention of yours into a real product! This is definitely not just a saying!"
Chapter completed!